The memory of the women's white faces: Japaneseness and the ideal image of women

Abstract

During the Meiji period, the white face became the woman's face, whereas in the pre-modern period, certain men needed to put white powder on their faces every day. An examination of changes in clothing and fashion in relation to the Meiji state's policies on gender reveals that representations of the man's face and of the woman's face have been differently modernized and Westernized since the encounter with Western culture. The division by gender along the lines of Western clothing/unmade-up face/men and kimono/white face/women relates to the formation of a national identity in the course of the Japanese nationalist project. An ideal image of middle-class women became a symbol of tradition and native culture, and it still survives as such in contemporary Japan. A woman can experience and express Japaneseness through the representation of the ideal image of women by using the white face in public. There is a pivotal link between femininity and Japaneseness. This article explores both why it should be the ideal image of middle-class women that has come to represent tradition and national culture, and how the link between the representation of the ideal womanhood and of Japaneseness continues in contemporary Japan.